Posts Tagged ‘Miller’

Ever since Mac Miller’s tragic and untimely death at age 26 earlier this month, fellow musicians have paid tribute to the young rapper and producer with a slew of heartfelt messages. Some came via social media shortly after the news broke. A whole host of Mac’s fans, meanwhile, assembled in his hometown of Pittsburgh for a candlelight vigil attended by his family.

Still others, like Childish Gambino and Kendrick Lamar, used their platforms onstage to speak from the heart. Over the weekend, Travis Scott became the latest artist to follow suit, devoting a portion of his show in Las Vegas to deliver a musical salute.

“Malcolm, that’s my boy / Mac Miller, I love you / Always be my boy,” Travis sings in the clip above, captured and circulated on social media (via Pitchfork). “Mac Miller, you the one / We love you, fucking boy.”

It recalled the direct tenor of how many Mac tributes have gone in the wake of his death. Gambino called him “the sweetest guy” at a concert in Chicago, and Lamar praised Mac as a “great musician, great writer” on Complex’s Open Late With Peter Rosenberg. “Just always had a smile on his face, and that’s something that I commend,” he said.

These tributes are all incredibly sweet, and more will likely come in as the weeks, months, and years go on after his death. To remember Mac in Mac’s own words, watch the MTV News compilation below, tracing his origin, his rap rise, and his infectious personality that made him so beloved.

Mac Miller got a touching hometown send-off on Tuesday night (September 11) at Pittsburgh’s Frick Park, where thousands of fans attended a vigil for the late rapper.

The location was chosen for its significance to Miller: His 2011 debut album was named after the park’s playground, known as Blue Slide Park, located just a couple blocks from the high school he went to. Miller spoke about the park in a 2012 interview with MTV News, saying, “No matter what happens in life, no matter where you go, where you’re off to, what happens with the park, that slide will always be blue. That will always be Blue Slide Park, no matter what.”

On Tuesday morning, Pittsburgh Public Works applied a fresh coat of blue paint on the famous slide, and fans gathered around it that evening, filling the playground with flowers, candles, artwork, and Steelers jerseys. According to local reports, a petition was even passed around to request that the name of the playground be changed to “Mac Miller Blue Slide Park.”

Miller’s grandmother Marcia Weiss was on hand at the vigil (wearing a Blue Slide Park album art sweatshirt) and thanked the crowd for giving her grandson a beautiful tribute. “Everybody, he would be so excited, he wished he was here and I wish he was here,” she said. “But he loves you all, he loves Pittsburgh and everything that you have done for him. Thank you so much for everybody being here. You were wonderful.”

Miller passed away on September 7 of a reported overdose and was pronounced dead at his home in Los Angeles. He was 26 years old. See more photos and videos from the vigil below.

Mac Miller’s untimely death at 26 last week has ushered in a torrent of support, love, and memorializing from his peers in the music world and beyond. Notable moments came from his ex-girlfriend Ariana Grande, who posted a striking photo of Mac over the weekend, as well as fellow rappers like Chance, Kyle, Wiz Khalifa, Post Malone, and more.

At a tour stop in Chicago, as The Fader points out, Childish Gambino offered his take on Miller’s death as well, pausing the show for a heartfelt musing on how the two complemented each other through the years. As the fan-captured video below shows, Gambino began with a simple declaration: “I’m a very sensitive person… but this Mac Miller shit got me fucked up.”

“He was so nice. Y’all don’t know, like, he was the sweetest guy,” he continued. “A lot of critics were like, ‘Yo, this corny-ass white dude,’ just like they’re like, ‘Yo, this corny-ass black dude.’ And we used to talk, and this kid, he just loved music.

“We should be allowed to be sad about that. Like, my heart was broken. And I feel good about being sad because it tells me that he was special, that I had a special moment.”

Gambino used Miller’s rise, which was concurrent with his own, as a reminder that people don’t have to be beholden to the narratives and expectations and definitions that other people place on them. “We’re all way too complex to be a narrative,” he concluded, before telling Miller he loves him and dedicating his song “Riot” to him.

UPDATE (9/7/18, 7:30 p.m. ET): Mac Miller’s family has released a statement about his death, per E! News. It reads, “Malcolm McCormick, known and adored by fans as Mac Miller, has tragically passed away at the age of 26. He was a bright light in this world for his family, friends and fans. Thank you for your prayers. Please respect our privacy. There are no further details as to the cause of his death at this time.”

Rapper Mac Miller has died of an apparent overdose, Variety confirmed on Friday (September 7). TMZ first reported the news that Miller “was found Friday at around noon at his San Fernando Valley home and was pronounced dead at the scene.” He was 26.

Miller had been open about his struggles with addiction — which he frequently addressed in his music — and he was recently charged with a DUI after crashing his car into a utility pole in Los Angeles. Shortly after the incident, his ex-girlfriend Ariana Grande wrote a statement about their former two-year relationship, saying that she had “cared for him and tried to support his sobriety.”

Miller, born Malcolm James McCormick in Pittsburgh, started rapping in high school and began his music career as part of the group The Ill Spoken. He released several mixtapes on his own, including the breakout project K.I.D.S., before dropping his first album, Blue Slide Park, in 2011. It was the first independent album in 16 years to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard album charts.

Miller went on to release four more albums, which chronicled his evolution from a fratty rapper to a sonic explorer — he even became an accomplished producer under the moniker “Larry Fisherman.” He released his fifth studio album, Swimming, on August 3, which was filled with spaced-out funk music and ambitious collaborations with Jon Brion, Flying Lotus, and Thundercat. He was gearing up for a nationwide tour in support of his new music that was scheduled to kick off in late October.

Friends, collaborators, and fans took to Twitter on Friday to remember Miller and to pay their respects.

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2018 hasn’t been kind to Mac Miller. In May, Ariana Grande and Miller split, and in the aftermath, the Pittsburgh rapper was reportedly arrested for a DUI. Subsequently, Grande called the relationship “toxic” after a Twitter user blamed her for Mac’s predicament. Now it seems like the “Cold Summer” MC has something to say, albeit buried six feet under in a pine box casket.

The Christian Weber-directed music video Miller’s new “Self Care” pays homage to a scene in Kill Bill: Vol. 2, where the Bride punches her way out of a shallow grave. Apparently the metaphor of rising against adversity wasn’t lost on Miller. The song reads as Mac trying to convince himself of the power of self care as he sings, “I’m treatin’ me right / Hell yeah, we’re gonna be alright.” The young rapper admits “I been losin’ my mind” as he hints at the underlying cause of his reported DUI — ”That Mercedes drove me crazy, I was speedin’.”

However, the most potent portion of the song is when he briefly mentions how he feels after the dissolution of a recent relationship: “We play it cool, we know we fucked up, yeah / You keep on sayin’ you in love, so / Tell me are you really down?” Miller’s “Self Care,” doesn’t sound triumphant in the traditional sense. Instead, the song finds Mac working through difficult and tense emotions, as he holes himself up in his crib, while “war outside” rages on.

“Self Care,” produced by Nostxglic, ID Labs & DJ Dahi is a somber affair, but luckily by the video’s end, Mac digs himself out of the grave. During a 2017 interview with W Magazine, Mac discussed his sobriety and the weight of being so open with it.

“I’ve spent a good time very sober and now I’m just, like, living regularly,” Mac said at the time. “I think it’s important. I don’t believe in absolute anything, but I think not sharing that type of information, because it becomes like, ‘Oh he’s sober, oh he’s not, oh he has a beer, oh my god.’”

It isn’t clear how Mac is doing at this point, but it is inspiring to see him fighting to take care of himself. His new album, Swimming, drops on August 3 and hopefully will give more updates on how he is coping.

Mac Miller was reportedly arrested in the San Fernando Valley for a DUI and hit and run on Thursday (May 17). According to TMZ, the Pittsburgh rapper hit a power pole in his 2016 G-Wagon and fled the scene before cops arrived.

In the past, Miller has been open about his struggles with addiction and how it informed projects like 2014′s Faces. During a 2017 interview with W Magazine, Mac discussed his sobriety and the weight of being so open with it.

“I’ve spent a good time very sober and now I’m just, like, living regularly,” Mac said at the time. “I think it’s important. I don’t believe in absolute anything, but I think not sharing that type of information, because it becomes like, ‘Oh he’s sober, oh he’s not, oh he has a beer, oh my god.’”

Miller continued to describe how he’s become more reserved when talking about his struggles.

“I just realized some things are important to just keep for yourself,” he said. “That was a learning experience. But it was important to let everyone know that I wasn’t doing fucking crazy amounts of hard drugs. That was good to get out there.”

Australian footwear brand Feit have teamed up with designer Matthew Miller on a set of collaborative shoes for Fall/Winter 2014. A reworking of Feit’s “The Hand Sewn” High and Low models, both pairs are rendered in a rich, deep navy suede. Like all Feit’s footwear, these shoes are made by hand to the highest standards in the industry. Set to a limited run, you can pre-order these Feit x Matthew Miller shoes for February delivery here.

When we first met Mac Miller as a teen, he wasn’t old enough to drink, but now that the “Donald Trump” MC has hurdled over his 21st year, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to have a sip or two. It was those one or two sips that inspired “Black Bush,” a new studio track on Mac’s newest LP Live From Space. “That night was a great night,” Mac recalled to MTV News when we caught up with him at his home studio in Studio City, California. Hear him explain in the video above.